We want to make global quality products in India for Indians: Sifat Khurana, Innovist

For a D2C company that began with the ambition of building an Indian beauty business for both India and the world, L’Oréal knocking on the door was not exactly part of the original script.

Innovist, the parent company behind beauty brands including Bare Anatomy, Chemist at Play and SunScoop, had always imagined a different path. “Since the start we always had this thing in mind that we wanted to become an instant company. We wanted to go IPO. We wanted to make the India brand big enough for Indians and the globe,” said Sifat Khurana, Co-Founder and CMO, Innovist at the e4m D2C Summit.

That made L’Oréal’s interest an unexpected turn. “What crossed our minds when we saw L’Oreal knocking on our doors was Oh, really? Is this an option?” she recalled.

But the eventual partnership also brought into focus why a global beauty major would look at an Indian D2C business in the first place. L’Oréal already has scientific capabilities, global brands and extensive experience in building beauty businesses. For Khurana, the missing piece was India.

“What they don't have is India. I mean, the fact that a brand built out of India for Indians is extremely lucrative for a company like L'Oreal or rather any other global brand out there who wants to set foot in India. And this is the easiest and the fastest way to learn about the Indian consumer.”

For Innovist, however, the decision was not driven simply by a checklist of capabilities it could acquire from a larger company. Khurana describes the acquisition as one built around cultural and strategic alignment.

“It is more from the perspective that we see a very strong alignment in the values and the culture that Innovist holds versus L'Oreal,” she said.

“Just for lack of a better example, I guess in the entire beauty industry, they are the grandfathers and we are their grandchildren. The DNA is the same, the quality of the product is the same, the obsession is the same,” Khurana added. That alignment, she believes, is what made the acquisition feel seamless rather than like a traditional large-company takeover of a startup.

The immediate opportunity for Innovist is not necessarily a new product category or another distribution channel. It is speed.

“More than anything, it's the speed of scale,” said Khurana. “I guess that is the biggest and one utmost important aspect that this collaboration will bring. Something that we would have taken maybe years together to reach, L'Oreal will help us get to that scale very soon.”

That scale also puts the spotlight on what Innovist does not want to lose along the way. For Khurana, the answer is science.

“Science, I guess. The entire DNA. Innovist is built on the DNA of clean, transparent science,” she said. “And that is the DNA which we want to never get diluted. Because it is actually that has brought us this far.”

The emphasis on science is central to how Innovist built its brands, particularly Chemist at Play. The brand was designed around making skincare science easier for consumers to understand rather than treating scientific language as a barrier. “The entire brand was built on this thesis that skin care doesn't have to be that serious,” Khurana explained. “Yes, there is science, but science does not always have to be very hard to come.”

The broader ambition behind Innovist predates the L’Oréal deal. Khurana said the company was founded around a perceived gap in the Indian market: products making scientific claims without necessarily delivering the science behind them.

“We have this concept of brainwashing, science washing. If you're talking about science, but there's really no science behind the product. Science has become more for marketing terms.”

The answer, for Innovist, was to build products in India that could stand alongside global alternatives. “We want to make global quality products in India for Indians, because we don't want people to be looking out of the country. If I want to get a good shampoo or a good moisturizer, the only option I have is somewhere abroad.”

The L’Oréal partnership therefore becomes a validation of that original thesis. “It is a validation that India can create products which can be at par with global standards,” said Khurana. “And it's honestly a great thing that we've been able to be the flag bearers of a concept like that.”

She repeatedly returns to product as the core differentiator in an increasingly crowded market. For her, marketing can drive the first interaction, but the product has to earn everything that follows. “Honestly, I guess the job of a marketing campaign or just anything in marketing is to get the customer to try your product out. The rest of the story is the way the product behaves and works with the customer.”

Because ultimately, she argues, acquisition or scale cannot substitute for consumer trust. “If your product talks for itself and it has a good repeat rate, customers will come back because the product is really doing something for them.”

For Innovist, the next chapter is therefore less about proving that an Indian D2C brand can be acquired by a global beauty major. That milestone has already arrived. The bigger question is what happens when an India-built brand gets the machinery to scale globally.

“I'd love to be walking on a London street and spotting Innovist products!” Khurana concluded.